Access Hikvison IP Camera Directly

Here is how to access your IP camera's directly through the NVR. In this setup the IP Cameras are connected to a Hikvision NVR without virtual host feature.

Note: Your IP address setup may differ, so I will explain the IP Scheme. Also you will have to set your IP cameras to have static IP addresses configured on the web interface of each camera, then add to the NVR manually instead of Plug and Play.

NVR is connected to your home router with the IP of 192.168.1.200 for example, so your laptop connected to WiFi would have IP of for example 192.168.1.210 on the same subnet as your NVR.

Now your cameras are connected to the POE ports at the back of your NVR. The Cameras have an IP such as:

CAMERA 1 - 192.168.20.10
CAMERA 2 - 192.168.20.11
CAMERA 3 - 192.168.20.12
CAMERA 4 - 192.168.20.13

And the NVR's IP Address for the Internal NIC would be on the same subnet as the IP Cameras such as 192.168.20.1.

Set the IP Cameras default gateway to that of the IP Address under Internal NIC IPv4 Address in the Network Configuration page of the NVR (might not be visible from web interface, connect to the NVR directly using HDMI/VGA and mouse).

Once the Cameras IP address and default gateway is configured and the cameras have added to the NVR manually and can be viewed through the NVR. You can Telnet into the NVR and enter the command:  
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward 

Now you should be able to type in the IP Address of the IP camera in your web browser and access the cameras directly. http://192.168.20.10

Note: You will have to re-enter the command "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward " if the NVR ever reboots.

If this does not work for you, you may have to setup a static route in your router such as:

Destination LAN: 192.168.20.0
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.200

DS-2CD2432F-IW Zoneminder

This is how I got my Hikvision 3MP Indoor Cube IP Camera DS-2CD2432F-IW working in Zoneminder.

Adding the camera to Zoneminder:
   i) Create a new monitor and choose source as ffmpeg

  ii) Click on source tab, add rtsp://username:password@192.168.1.120:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0?tcp to  the source(change your IP as neccessary on your network, and your username and password.

 iii) Colours is 24 bit, Width is 1920, Height is 1080(I choose 1080P mode instead of 3MP), Click save and it should now work. 

If you cannot get a live stream in Zoneminder, try to increase the shmall and shmmax values. I was not getting an image in zoneminder until increased my values to the following. Note your shmall and shmmax values could be more or less depending on how much RAM you have.

sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

Now add or change the following in the file:

# Increase the maximum shared memory
   kernel.shmall = 1073741824
   kernel.shmmax = 1073741824

Save and exit, you may also need to reboot.


At this point you should have the camera working in Zoneminder, if not you may have to install H264 on your Zoneminder server by following the instructions here.

Stream Hikvision NVR VLC

Here is how to stream the video feed from a Hikvsion NVR using VLC.

Create a text file and enter the following line replacing the username/pass/ip with yours.

Main stream:

rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.2.100/Streaming/Channels/101

or

rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.2.100/PSIA/Streaming/channels/101

Substream:

 
rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.2.100/Streaming/Channels/102

or

rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.2.100/PSIA/Streaming/channels/102

Note: In this example 192.168.2.100 is the IP address on the LAN port of the Hikvison NVR. the first 1 ine 101 is the camera number and the second 1 is the main stream, can use 2 for substream.

Save the text file as Camera1.asf or Camera1.m4v(asf or m4v is the extension of the file so your media player will recognize it and open it) now double-click the Camera1.asf or Camera1.m4v file or drag and drop it into VLC and it should start streaming immediately.


See this post on how to stream different cameras/channel and mainstream/substream. Hikvison NVR Streaming URLs

NVR/DVR Software for IP Cameras

This is a list of Security Camera monitoring software that I have tried or like the features. I will try to update if I find something else that is interesting.

Vitamin D(Now Sighthound) (Free with Restrictions, Paid Version Available)
-Like the motion detection


Zoneminder (Free)
-Really customizable and can be integrated with soo many things.


BlueIris (Paid)
-Looks very promising.

webcamXP or webcam7 (Free with Restrictions, Paid Version Available)

iSPY Connect (Free with Restrictions, Paid Version Available)
-Works nicely and has a great feature of automatically finding the camera URL.

Milestone Systems (Free with Restrictions, Paid Version Available)


If you know any other software that is good, please let me know so I can add it to the list after trying it out.

Hikvision NVR Streaming URL

Here is a list of tested URL's for Hikvision NVR streaming URL. This will stream the IP cameras that are connected to the NVR.

Main RTSP Stream:   

Channel/Camera 1 - rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.1.100/Streaming/Channels/101
Channel/Camera 2 - rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.1.100/Streaming/Channels/201
Channel/Camera X - rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.1.100/Streaming/Channels/X01
  
Sub RTSP Stream:
Channel/Camera 1 - rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.1.100/Streaming/Channels/102
Channel/Camera 2 - rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.1.100/Streaming/Channels/202
Channel/Camera X - rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.1.100/Streamin/Channels/X02 


Remember to change the username and password as well as IP address of the NVR (in this example its 192.168.1.100) to match your setup. You can also add ?tcp to the end of the URL if you get corrupted frames. Example: rtsp://admin:12345@192.168.1.100/Streaming/Channels/102?tcp

Syma X12 Quadcopter

Syma X12, X12S Quad-copter

I love this little quad-copter, its small, power-full and fun to fly. I also have the Cheerson CX10 which I love and is much smaller than the X12 and cannot be compared. I like them both for different reasons. Anyways the reason I am making this post is to save a link to the user manual in English.


Download User Manual Here

Fix Zoneminder Corrupt Frames

Sometimes when I added a camera or upgraded the firmware on my IP Camera I would start to see grey frames, half frames, corrupt frames or dropped frames in Zoneminder. There are three fixes you can try to resolve this issue.

1) This can sometimes be fixed by increasing your SHMMAX and SHMALL as can be seen in this post.

2) If that does not fix your problem try adding ?tcp to the end of your RTSP or FFMPEG stream in zoneminder as can be seen in this post.

3) Another thing you HAVE to make sure frame rate(FPS) on Zoneminder is the same or a little higher than it is set on the camera, this is actually what fixed my corrupt frames after upgrading my camera firmware. I had my camera set to 25fps and zoneminder set to 6 fps, once I set the camera to match or lower (<=) to that of zoneminder settings for that camera, I stopped getting corrupt frames.

Keywords: RTSP, Zoneminder Corrupt Frames Fix, MJPEG, ASF, 3MP